DNA tests buffer belief that DeSalvo was Boston Strangler

BOSTON – DNA tests confirm that the man who once claimed to be the Boston Strangler did kill the woman believed to be the serial killer’s last victim and was likely responsible for the deaths of the other victims, authorities said Friday.

Albert DeSalvo admitted to killing Mary Sullivan and 10 other women in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964 but later recanted.

Additional Photos

This Feb. 25, 1967, file photo shows self-confessed Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo minutes after his capture in Boston. DeSalvo confessed to the string of 1960s killings but was never convicted. He died in prison in the 1970s. Massachusetts officials said Thursday, July 11, 2013, that DNA technology led to a breakthrough, putting them in a position to formally charge the Boston Strangler with the murder of Mary Sullivan, last of the slayings attributed to the Boston Strangler. (AP Photo, File)

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, left, discusses an evidence chart that shows a likeness of homicide victim Mary Sullivan, top right, following a news conference at Boston Police headquarters, Thursday, July 11, 2013. Investigators helped by advances in DNA technology finally have forensic evidence linking longtime suspect Albert DeSalvo to Sullivan, the last of the 1960s slayings attributed to the Boston�Strangler. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) AP

n this March 10, 2000 file photo, Diane Dodd, left, and son Casey Sherman hold a photo in Rockland, Mass., of Dodd's sister Mary Sullivan, who was found strangled in January 1964 and is believed to have been the last victim of the Boston Strangler. Albert DeSalvo confessed to the string of 1960's killings but was never convicted. He died in prison in the 1970s. Massachusetts officials said Thursday, July 11, 2013, that DNA technology led to a breakthrough, putting them in a position to formally charge the Boston Strangler with the murder of Mary Sullivan. (AP Photo/Patriot Ledger, Greg Derr, File) AP

The DNA finding “leaves no doubt that Albert DeSalvo was responsible for the brutal murder of Mary Sullivan” and it was “most likely” that he also was the Boston Strangler, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Eleven Boston-area women between the ages of 19 and 85 were sexually assaulted and killed between 1962 and 1964, crimes that terrorized the region and grabbed national headlines.

Authorities said recently that new technology allowed them to test semen left at the crime scene of Sullivan’s death using DNA from a living relative of DeSalvo’s. That produced a match with DeSalvo that excluded 99.9 percent of suspects, and was the first forensic evidence tying DeSalvo to the nearly 50-year-old case.

To confirm the match, investigators unearthed his remains a week ago and said Friday that the odds that the semen belonged to a male other than DeSalvo were 1 in 220 billion.

An attorney for DeSalvo’s family, Elaine Sharp, said last week that even a perfect DNA match wouldn’t mean he killed Sullivan and suggested that someone else was present at the slaying. She said previous private testing on Sullivan’s remains showed the presence of DNA from what appeared to be semen that wasn’t a match to DeSalvo.

Police said the evidence used in private testing from Sullivan’s exhumed remains was “very questionable.”

Sharp also said that DeSalvo’s brother and his nephew — whom police secretly trailed to collect a family DNA sample from a discarded water bottle — won’t comment on the new DNA result because it hasn’t been proven to be relevant to the question of whether DeSalvo raped and strangled Sullivan.

But the idea that the DNA match doesn’t identify DeSalvo as Sullivan’s killer is bizarre, responded Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley.

“It suggests that Mary Sullivan had consensual sex with Albert DeSalvo moments before another person who has never been identified sexually assaulted and strangled her to death, leaving no trace of his presence,” Wark said.

F. Lee Bailey, a defense lawyer who once represented DeSalvo, said Friday that DeSalvo provided so many details that only the perpetrator would know that he became convinced that his client was the Boston Strangler.

Bailey said it’s fortunate that the DNA test was run because the failure to try DeSalvo for the 11 homicides led to speculation about the Strangler’s identity. He said Friday’s announcement shows that case detectives did good police work when they devised questions for DeSalvo that only the killer could answer correctly.

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